Remember like 2 months ago when I bought a giant pork shoulder because the coronavirus crisis had affected meat availability in the grocery store? Well, we’re still in the middle of this damn pandemic, and I still have 4 pounds of pork shoulder sitting in my fridge. So I decided to go from Mexican cuisine …

One of my favorite summer dinners is a big salad with some kind of simply grilled protein.  And if you do the grilling outside, you have the added benefit of keeping your kitchen cooler than it would be if you cranked up your oven.   I made a big Greek salad (featured in a previous blog …

When Hannah opted to go to Davidson College (located in – lo and behold –  Davidson, NC, less than an hour’s drive from our home in South Charlotte), we had to promise to pretend that she was going to school across the country.  She wanted the true college experience; she did not want us popping …

One of my favorite things about Mediterranean cooking is the incredibly wide range of flavors. And I don’t think that is better demonstrated than in the classic Gyro: the meat blend has a complex palette of spices and herbs that develops over time in your mouth; the tzatziki melds the creaminess of yogurt, the cooling …

So I love mix-ins.  An ice cream with a bunch of fun stuff in it is much more appealing to me than a simple flavor with no variation in textures.  Ditto for most cookies and bars.  So when I was watching the finals of (a past season) of one of the many cooking competitions I …

I have long held that the waffle is superior to the pancake in every way. You get a greater variety in texture, nice holes for holding your syrup or toppings, and less of a chance of under- or over-cooking your breakfast. And among all the waffles, the Belgian has to reign supreme. Fluffy, sweet, tender …

This meal was built around my hankering for naan.  I decided to make some of this double Y (yeasty and yummy) Indian flatbread and then added the rest of the meal to it.  I made the raita, rice and mango chutney that are staples of all of my Pakistani and Indian meals, and I am …

When I use my deep fryer, I like to get several uses out of the oil before I dump it.  So my neighbors were the happy recipients of these toffee doughnuts that I decided to make as my way of getting one more use of oil (after frying tortilla chips, I believe).  The recipe, even …

David will almost always order shrimp and grits if it is on a menu, but I have never made this dish at home.  Now that I am cooking almost every night, I decided to add it to our repertoire.  I used instant grits, since the recipe called for them, but enhanced them with all sorts …

Wrapping up my week of pizza experiment, I wanted to try one pizza that was a little more original and a little more indicative of how I see my style as a chef. So that meant a couple of things: First off, as I stated before, I love fruit in otherwise savory and spicy dishes, …